Below is news for our Missionary to Kapchorwa, Uganda; Jonathan Beggs. So much is happening there including Literacy training for women, Leadership training for Pastors and other health concerns. More info coming, but for now enjoy this report on how DCI and VOSH helped save a community’s vision.
“There is a special joy in being the vehicle used by our Lord to bring sight to the blind.
In September fifteen people who volunteer with Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity paid their own way to bring several thousand pair of refurbished used glasses. They set up a clinic in an unused building of the local health agency and saw 2,224 patients, many of whom they diagnosed with cataracts, including a number of children.
Our missionary, Jonathan, arranged for the group to come and dealt with government agencies to get clearance for the project. Then he arranged for the place to work and the needs of the volunteers and rounded up and prepared local volunteers to help. He advertised the free service on the radio, in churches and with a big banner over the street. And the people came, thousands of them, ranging in age from five years old to close to 90. Among the patients was a Muslim man who works as a driver for government officials and others. He said he thought he might need a little help with reading glasses. He was diagnosed with vision so poor he would flunk the DMV eye exam here. When he left the building in his new glasses with a strong prescription, his jaw dropped in amazement as he saw details like leaves on trees for the first time in many years. And perhaps now the streets in Kampala and Kapchorwa will be a little safer.
A month later Jonathan persuaded an eye hospital a couple of hours away to send a team of surgeons to do 100 cataract surgeries. The leaders in Kapchorwa were so impressed at these great things that had never happened there before that they praised Jonathan and DCI and asked us to stay there a long time.
Thank you for standing with us in the effort to reach people for Christ and help them help themselves at the same time. We appreciate you.” Jonathan
